Follow Blog via Email

Lap o’ Tassie – Day 2

Day 2 of our Tassie trip began with this –

– contained this –

– and finished with this –

I could probably say no more and finish this post here… but I won’t. There were a few other things which transpired and are worthy of note… not least of which is Ray’s latte at Taraleah. After waiting for his coffee for 45 minutes, Ray told the waiter what he really thought about the lack of service in the wilderness of western Tasmania. There was thereafter, much speculation and discussion around what extra ingredients the barrista may have included.

The convict Strahan

This day started as a gorgeous one with breakfast on the harbour at Strahan. Apparently the town was named after a convict who had stolen a scone. Legend has it that he swallowed it whole and died on the location of the current village bakery.

Once on the road, many of us were surprised to come up behind a large BMW road bike on the Queestown Road whose rider was appearing to struggle just to keep balance. The chekered bands across the paniers had us worried it might be a police bike but most of us passed him quickly realising even Tasmanian cops could ride better than this bloke.

Lindsay surprised us with a brilliant new road up to Crotty Dam (top photo this post) which is absolutely locked in as my number one road to cycle when I finally get to Tassie on a pushbike (a serious hidden Tassie treasure) and Dev took his slow-helmet-fastening one step further by taking a piss as everyone else left for the Lake Gordon Dam (it was a good two hours until Dev finally regrouped with the rest of us at Lake Peddar). On our return from Strath Gordon, nearly all of us were running on the smell of an oily rag. It was pure luck which saved us when we coasted into Westerway (nearly literally) to catch the petrol station owner locking up after his last gulp of Friday night Cascade. He reopened to fill us all up – and therefore his til. I think he was quite chuffed with the late Friday evening revenue!